U.S. Army commander covered for drug runner (Congress, Iran, cocaine)

[ParkTwain]

Holy Crap!


Salon.com News | The corruption of Col. James Hiett
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July 5, 2000 | BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- In two weeks, a retired Army colonel will stand for sentencing before Judge Edward Korman in the Cadman Plaza federal courthouse. The colonel's name has never been uttered on the Senate floor. You can rummage in vain for any mention of him in congressional committee testimony and reports.

Yet the case of Col. James Hiett, former commander of U.S. Army anti-drug advisors in Colombia, due to be sentenced in mid-July for covering up his wife's drug smuggling, has everything to do with the passage last week of more than $1 billion in military aid to Colombia. Hiett's case offers dark hints of what the United States is in for by turning the Colombian drug-war theater into a large-scale American military enterprise -- and it reveals, too, some of the costs of the drug war on America's own streets.

The Hiett scandal is already an international embarrassment to the United States, and its outlines have been widely reported. In the mid-1990s, while Hiett was still stationed in the United States, his wife Laurie Ann Hiett was treated in an Army hospital for drug addiction. Later Hiett was named by the Army to head the 200-strong battalion of military advisors in Bogotá. The couple went -- even though Laurie had lapsed back into addiction, snorting cocaine in front of her husband.

Soon she was buying cocaine through her Army-employed Colombian driver. By 1998 she was under investigation by the Army, not only for using drugs, but for shipping $700,000 worth of coke, wrapped in brown paper, to the United States in diplomatic mail. She handed some of the cash proceeds, collected on trips to New York, to her husband -- who proceeded to carefully spend the wad on household bills, to "dissipate," in his own word, the money trail. In May Laurie Hiett pleaded guilty to smuggling and was sentenced to five years in federal prison.

That much was reported, in detail, on "60 Minutes" and elsewhere. Less well known, but revealed in her sentencing hearing last May, is how the Army worked to protect her husband. First, Army investigators tipped him off about their investigation, in particular their pursuit of a $25,000 roll of cash Laurie had handed him. Then, after his wife was arrested, those same Army investigators quickly cleared Hiett of any wrongdoing. It was only U.S. Customs Service director Ray Kelly who insisted on pushing the investigation further after his agents became convinced of the officer's complicity in his wife's actions.

You might think that an Army coverup of a minor-league scandal like an officer's drug-smuggling wife would worry a Congress about to plunge the American military far deeper into corruption-mired Colombia. But the issue never came up. ...
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[Hawkeye48]

It doesn't surprise me. When I was stationed in Korea they nailed a major for black-marketing. He lost his job, pension and went to prison.

I have to admit though, I can't help but think the billion we're sending for military aid is being wasted.

[GregW]

The US Military being involved with drug smuggling? How could this possibly be? Our Government would never smuggle drugs like Iran-contra or do anything to risk a collapse of the price by leaving the Columbian’s alone to grow as much coca as they can. A billion dollars in price support is a great idea if you are the smugglers. This guy is being crucified because his wife freelanced instead of going along with the “official” channels.